After-Take: CHICAGO PD “Hit Me”

Name of the Episode: “Hit Me”

Beware – the follow contains spoilers!!!

After a week off, the squad comes back to Lindsay and Jay gambling in a casino. The situation seems unlikely for the pair. Lindsay leaves the casino with her winnings and a few drinks in her system. She is pulled over by an officer and he gives her the option of being arrested for drunk driving; or she can surrender her cash and forget the incident happened. Lindsay hands the cash to the officer, and the intelligence unit drives up to the scene. “Officer Watkins” is arrested on the charges of impersonating an officer. Once the team is back to the station, they realize the man has a stolen badge; and has no identification.

Trudy blabs out to the lobby about Burgess’ broken engagement. Despite her brave face, Burgess breaks down and asks for a transfer. Trudy allows her to cry and sort her feelings in a closed office. Now the intelligence team realizes they are dealing with multiple cases of fake cops, the commander and detective of robbery are looped in. A young woman named Christy was assaulted by a fake officer when she refused to give any money. However, she says Watkins was not the man who assaulted her; Voight goes to Watkins to find out the name of the man in charge. Watkins gives up Clayton “Bug” Howard and a squad is sent to his residence.

Kim and Sean approach the residence and see a squad car already outside of the apartment. A man dressed in a police uniform comes out of the house and seems business as usual. Except when he puts the car in reverse, he begins to shoot at Kim and Sean. They were able to call in the incident and pursue the suspect. But after a dangerous pursuit, both cars crash and Roman is left bloodied and injured. Both are conscious and call for a paramedic. Clayton escapes from the wreck and leaves on foot. When the team surveys the area, they find a shotgun in the trunk of the car. Adam does not understand why Kim is not more honest about how she is feeling. But the intelligence team has more problems when Roman confronts Voight about being more open about their plans. Lindsay and Halstead chat with the officer who lost his badge; they wonder if he has anything to do with the recent robberies. Although he declines knowing any details about the robberies, Halstead is not buying the story.

Atwater and Ruzeck go to the casino to follow up on a lead about a spotter for Clayton. They find a card counter instead; but he insists he can point out the real spotter. He spots Franklin, a known associate for Clayton. The team heads over to the last known residence, but they find a body bent over the tub with a bullet in his head. The body is confirmed to be Franklin; the crew knows the cops are on their trail, so they’re tying up loose ends.

Lindsay and Halstead run down a lead for the stolen squad cars. Except the lot manager says the cars were signed out. Clayton was one officer, but he had a female partner with him. Her name is Elizabeth and she has a list of priors on her record. Roman and Burgess were sent to her residence; Elizabeth answered and tried to stall while Clayton attempted to sneak out of the backdoor. Roman pursued Clayton while Burgess fought off Elizabeth at the front door. Once both suspects are in custody, Voight decides to take a crack at Clayton first. After some obvious disagreements, Clayton gives a name so he can get a deal: Detective Martin Watts. Voight is troubled because that’s the detective who is investigating the current case.

His wife says he only came home for his shotgun and said he is working on an active case. It is not an easy case because he’s a part of the same squad; the team brings the swat team in for back up, but Trudy offers to do the negotiation because she worked with him for eleven years in a different district. She goes in alone to the trailer Watts is held up in. Trudy puts down her weapon and tries to reason with Watts. He is insistent he cannot walk out, either he pulls the trigger or an officer will. Watts didn’t feel it was fair that scumbags could pull his salary in a night, while he worked hard everyday. Trudy managed to get through to Watts, and he unloaded his shotgun. But Trudy made sure he also gave up his second piece before she turned her back. Once she did, they both exited out of the trailer unharmed.

At the end of the episode, Trudy and Voight realize how close that could have been for any of them. It only takes a little bit at a time to make you into something you don’t recognize anymore. Lindsay admits to Burgess she heard about the transfer request. Burgess admits to feeling guilty to calling off the engagement; but Lindsay warns the request goes to the commander of the force. It’s already difficult to be a female cop, and with that note stuck to her record, it will follow her entire career. Hopefully she takes time to realize what her best move will be.

Stay tuned next week as Chicago P.D. joins SVU in the search for two notorious serial killers. One night, two extraordinary shows. #SquadUp